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Wal-Mart Stores said...prescription history and other basic information on a few thousand online U.S. pharmacy customers may have been visible to other users during a four-day stretch last month due to a coding mistake...We had a software coding error for a 72-hour period from February 15 to 18 that affected a limited group of online pharmacy customers...We moved quickly to fix the issue once it was discovered...The error happened during the migration of servers and was not a hack...Fewer than 5,000 users were potentially affected, a small percentage of the number of people who logged in during the 72-hour period...Wal-Mart is contacting potentially impacted customers directly and is offering them identity protection services...

Dan Benamoz, RPh, President and CEO of Pharmacy Development Services, discusses the competitive advantages that independent pharmacies have over their retail pharmacy counterparts.

Neil Williams, PharmD, CPP, Clinical Pharmacist Coordinator for Community Care of North Carolina, discusses how the responsibilities assumed by pharmacy technicians during care transitions will continue to evolve.

Jerry McKee, PharmD, assistant director of Community Care of North Carolina, discusses the goals of the Pharmacy Home Project.

Under pressure to speed approval of generic medicines, the Food and Drug Administration...released data to defend its progress...the statistics indicate the agency is making headway, there are also clear signs the FDA continues to struggle with the workload...the number of full and tentative drug approvals has been rising each month since last April and reached 99 this past December...the agency also appears to be doing a better job of communicating with generic drug makers about their applications...Generic drug approval is gaining more attention thanks to the intensifying national debate over the rising cost of prescription medicines. Although prices have also risen for some of these copycat medicines, generics remain...lower-cost alternatives to brand-name drugs. And generics now account for 88 percent of all prescriptions written...The FDA is being a little disingenuous saying its backlog is almost cleared...The FDA faces...the increasingly large number of applications that drug makers are submitting...more than 4,000 have been filed in the past four years...the FDA workload will not abate...The upshot is that the rate at which new generics will find their way to pharmacy shelves is unclear — and that adds further uncertainty for health care budgets...

Mike Glaicar, Business Development: Pharmacy Times...(PTNN) This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

Diplomat Pharmacy announced Thursday that the Michigan Board of Pharmacy approved the company to offer a pharmacy technician training program with on-site exams. The program, which is offered exclusively to Diplomat employees, allows employees who complete it and the exam to be considered for state licensure..."The need for licensed pharmacy technicians is growing tremendously in Michigan," Diplomat’s education and training manager, Stephanie LaPointe, said. “Having a program at Diplomat that focuses on specialty pharmacy helps to ensure that the individuals serving in technician roles are appropriately supporting the specialty patient experience.“...“Through this training program, Diplomat will continue to support its pharmacy staff professionally and provide the best customer care to our patients by becoming experts in their field,” LaPointe said.

Neil Williams, PharmD, CPP, Clinical Pharmacist Coordinator for Community Care of North Carolina, discusses the key components of an effective pharmacy team.

New recommendations have been developed for diabetes, focusing on areas of importance for primary care providers...a systematic review to revise or clarify recommendations for diabetes diagnosis and management for primary care providers, based on new evidence. The recommendations were rated and reviewed, and approved by the American Diabetes Association Board of Directors. Feedback from the larger clinical community was incorporated...The researchers summarized the ADA standards in eight areas of importance to primary care providers: diagnosis, glycemic targets, medical management, hypoglycemia, cardiovascular risk factor management, microvascular disease screening and management, and inpatient diabetes management. An individualized approach was recommended for each area, with self-monitoring emphasized as a key component of care...

Joe Moose, owner of Moose Professional Pharmacy, discusses the new responsibilities that pharmacy technicians are assuming.